Pondering the recruiting rankings

Just looking at some recruiting numbers here from the Rivals class rankings.

In the top 13 classes, only four five-star players are committed. Two of those belong to Notre Dame, which sits at No. 11.

Kentucky has 18 total commits, No. 2 Texas has 19. Both have five four-star players. Tennessee, at No. 3, has 16 commits and six four-star players.

Those three schools are also the only schools to have double-digit commit numbers for three-star players.

Ole Miss, with nine, has the fourth-most three-star commits of the top 14 classes.

Think back to Signing Day when Hugh Freeze celebrated a consensus top 10 class which peaked at No. 5 in the 247 rankings. Freeze told us then that he didn’t believe he needed to sign such a highly ranked class every year to build the program. He believes he can build it with in his words “fours and high threes.”

The summer numbers tend to support that theory.

The class rankings will obviously shift when more of these five-stars start making commitments. Rivals currently lists 18 five-star players. Ole Miss is included in some of those players’ lists of possible destinations, as are many other schools.

247 currently has Ole Miss at No. 9, Scout at No. 14, ESPN at No. 15.

Freeze will see some benefits from his top 10 class this season.

The real benefit comes when string successful recruiting classes together, and it looks like he’s off to a good start with that.

The true measure of a class isn’t found on signing day. Measuring that success will include some level of star gazing but will also include limiting attrition and maximizing development.